


stanislaus

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: you were written in the stars [4]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: A Mystery is Solved, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Missing Scenes, The Parry-Malone Family Strikes Again, embarrassing parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 16:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30041514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Will is very confused by his mum’s habit of calling his dad “Stanislaus.” Luckily his best friend is there to clear things up for him – or not, as the case may be.[Stars verse where John comes home].
Relationships: Elaine Parry & John Parry & Mary Malone, Elaine Parry/John Parry
Series: you were written in the stars [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108145
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	stanislaus

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a scene Marie & I were cackling over together because Phillip Pullman just…drops that John Parry pretended to be this German called Stanislaus Grumman for like ten years, despite the fact he is English, with absolutely no explanation for why. I have a hunch, though, and it appears in both the end of this story and [this post.](https://the-silvertonguewitch.tumblr.com/post/645654225887608832/so-uh-you-know-the-whole-thing-about-john-parry) There are no trigger warnings.

The first time Will remembers hearing Mum calling Dad “Stanislaus” he’s about six and coming in from the garden. It’s said in a voice warm with laughter, the same tone of voice she uses on Will when he’s done something not funny enough for actual laughter but funny enough to be noticed. Will remembers thinking it was weird and not paying much attention to it, too distracted by the pretty snail he’d found down the back of the garden and come to show his parents.

The thing is, though, after that first time – and the second, and the third - he can’t _stop_ noticing it. She doesn’t do it often, but when she does it’s when she and Dad are fake-fighting with each other. Dad always rolls his eyes whenever she does, huffs, but he’s usually trying to hide a smile too the way he always is around Mum. Will decides that this is a mystery worth investigating. He sneaks around and listens to them, collects incidents and writes them down in the notebook he got for Christmas. Upon further observation, it turns out neither Sayan nor Mary call him it, but Sayan finds it funnier than Dad does whenever it does happen.

“What do you think it is?” Will asks his best friend Thabisa once when she’s over, showing her his secret notebook.

She takes it from him, narrows her eyes and flips through the pages in a considering fashion. “Hmmm.”

“It’s not any part of his name,” Will continues. “I asked him. He says his name is John Theodore Alfred Parry.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Thabisa says, shutting the notebook with a decisive snap.

“Do you know what’s happening?”

“Hahahahaha,” she says, “Of course. My cousin told me all about it.”

Thabisa’s seventeen-year-old cousin Gugu is a source of considerable awe to Will, being the rare kind of older relative who doesn’t complain incessantly about having to spend time with Thabisa – and by extension, Will. She talks to Thabisa like she would an adult, and lets Thabisa have her old nail varnish, and on one memorable occasion, let Will and Thabisa play with her heels and lipstick. Not that Will _has_ any older relatives to speak of, but if he did he’d want them to be like Gugu.

“It’s probably a game they play together,” Thabisa says loftily. “A special adult game. Gugu calls it ‘role-play.’ Like what we do when we play knights and dragons except…except for adults. And not normally during the daytime.”

“Oh,” Will says, confused. “Ok.”

“I’m sure you’ll understand soon,” Thabisa says and pats his arm, putting his notebook back on his bed.

*

It’s not until Will is nearly-teenage that he figures out what she means. Needless to say, the thought of his parents’ sex-lives is horrifying and he decides never to think about it _ever_ again.

*

One day after school, he’s hanging around in the office waiting for Mary to finish writing an equation on the whiteboard and come to get pizza with him. As he usually does, he sits down in the chair and sifts through the papers and books scattered across the desk. He doesn’t understand any of it, of course – his dad and Mary are way beyond Year 8 physics – but he quite enjoys looking at all the maths and thinking abstract thoughts about it all.

All of a sudden, he moves a book and sees it – an old-looking manuscript titled something he can’t even begin to understand. His eyes skip to the authorship – _Stanislaus Grumman_ – and he freezes.

“What have you found?” Mary asks at his sudden stillness. She caps her pen and leans over. “Oh, that old thing. Your dad insists it isn’t useful, but I’m trying to convince him otherwise. He was on the right track, just didn’t have all the information.”

“Wait, Dad _wrote_ this?”

“Yes.” Mary pauses, “Stanislaus Grumman was the pseudonym he used in the other world. Your mum gives him no end of shit over it.”

Will stares at her. “So _that’s_ why she calls him Stanislaus sometimes!”

“Yes. What did you think it was?”

Will feels his cheeks heat up to the temperature of a volcano, looks down at the desk and doesn’t answer. Mary, the traitor, guesses instantly what he thinks and bursts into laughter. Will briefly considers melting like lava and disappearing from this earthly plane.

“Oh my god, no way.” Then, “don’t worry, I won’t tell them. I’m sorry. That’s hilarious.”

“Thabisa told me it was that,” Will mutters, looks up.

Mary is still grinning. “I am…very not surprised by that. Bet you’re glad she’s wrong, huh?”

“Very,” Will says fervently, re-arranging the books and getting out of the chair. “Do you know why?”

“No,” Mary says, grabbing her coat. “Your mum and I have been trying to get it out of him for eight years but he won’t budge. Says that the answer’s there if we knew how to look.”

“Sounds like Dad.”

“It does,” Mary says. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.” She pauses, mischievous. “If you get an answer, I’ll buy your milkshakes for the next year.”

“Hmm,” Will replies. “Deal.”

*

“Dad, can I ask you a question?”

“Depends on what it is.”

Will hovers, shoves his hands into his pockets. “Why _Stanislaus_?”

Dad smiles at him, the kind of smile that means Will is getting absolutely nowhere. “Did your mother put you up to this?”

“No,” Will says, shifts. “I’m curious.”

“Fair enough,” Dad says, stretches, puts down the book he’s reading. “Really, the answer is right in front of you if you want to know.”

Dad can be startlingly literal at times, so Will takes ‘right in front of you’ to mean the shelves behind the sofa. He climbs up beside Dad, perches on the back of the sofa and reaches for the old comics stacked there next to some of the things Dad brought back from the other world. The top issue declares _BLACKHAWK_ in big letters, and Will begins to flick through it.

Two pages in, he realises that the squadron’s fighter plane is called the Grumman XF5F.

Five pages in, he meets a character called Stanislaus Drozdowski, and he resists the urge to face-palm.

“Dad,” he says, and Dad looks up from his book again.

“Yes?”

“Did you _really_?”

Dad shrugs. “He was always my favourite when I was your age. And being there felt like I was in a comic, so…”

“I can’t believe you,” Will says, shutting the comic and putting it back on the shelf. “Mum is going to laugh her head off.”

“I imagine she is,” Dad says, smiles and reaches out to ruffle Will’s hair fondly. “Well done for figuring it out.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat and hang out on Tumblr with me. I live at @if-fortunate.


End file.
